Cellars

by John Shirley

  One minute in his life—one minute from now.

  The room shrilled with the ecstatic yowls of the worshippers; the walls writhed with vibratory imagery, as the power of the ritual built, climbing for that one minute of transcendence.

  Madelaine passively allowed Lanyard to tug her by the wrist—the jade urn crooked in his other arm—out of the temple room, across the reception room, past the leather couch and the color TV console and into the elevator. He pulled her close to him and pressed the button. The doors hushed shut; the elevator began to rise.

  They had just stepped out, into the deserted subway station’s men’s room, Lanyard wearing his shoes and jeans and no shirt, Madelaine wearing her kimono, when the floor rocked from the detonations.

  Six explosions. Plaster dust settled from the ceiling as Lanyard ran for the exit.

  MADELAINE RAN WITH him. But mentally, in the involuntary reflex of her Gift, she monitored the events in the chamber below them, and if she hadn’t worked for so many hours on detachment, on feeling nothing about what she witnessed, she would have screamed.

  She saw from the viewpoint of one of the children. In one moment, the boy—he’d taken on a new name here, they called him Taker—was dancing, hardly hearing the keening electric music coming from the hidden loudspeakers. He was dancing to the throb he felt in his gut, boom-boom-boom-I’m-With-You, the Head chanting from inside him somewhere, boom-boom-boom-My-Strength-in-You, Boom-boom-boom-Take-and-Drink-and-Feel. He felt the rush, the surge of hot pleasure in his spine and his throat and most of all in the place between his legs, the pleasure coursing in through him in time with the boom-boom-boom of the Head’s throb, the chanting of the others, the rhythm of the dance.

  He laughed, seeing the comical Blessed Ones quivering, rooted symmetrically about the room, never dancing, but just…quivering with him. Taker was enjoying himself.

  He felt good. He’d enjoyed the way the woman had spasmed, suffering, when the knife had started digging into her—really digging in, not just nicking like they’d done playfully on the street before he’d come below—and most of all he’d enjoyed the fact that everyone else was enjoying her pain, too. So they approved of his enjoyment, because they shared it. And that felt good. It meant everything was all right—it meant everything, anything, was right. As long as the Head Underneath made it possible, it was right.

  He didn’t have to care. He was glad his dad was cut up. Bob Gaddis, big-shot reporter. Big shot. Fuck you, big shot, you took away my knife when you saw me carve those initials on the furniture and you told me you wouldn’t give me the minibike.

  Nothing was bad and that felt good.

  And all around him was action, and color, and people laying on other people near the edges of the circle, men spearing women with their hard pricks, and everything was—Everything was coming down on him.

  The ceiling was coming down. Ripping noises, and dust, and bad smells.

  Big chunks fell on Dervish and Who-So and Grabber and Cutidoff and on the Blessed Ones and smashed them into jelly.

  Something was killing the Head’s people—but He was laughing. Taker—tottering, falling, crying—could feel Him laughing at them all, enjoying the smashing, the broken bones, and then the spluchh sound—

  A big gray fist smashed into the room, and people were bouncing all around him like toy army men blown up with a firecracker, so fast he couldn’t tell one thing from another anymore, it was blurred together and then it was covered up by the gray-brown sludge that was everywhere, knocking them down, filling the room. He threw up. He was in over his head in sewage. He…

  MADELAINE WHIMPERED. She almost screamed. She managed not to feel. She withdrew. But not before glimpsing what had happened to Lily Chancery and Joey Minder.

  ONE MINUTE. One minute of sexual ecstasy and drug rush, to be stretched out forever. The ritual would come to consummation so that whatever Minder was doing, at the ritual’s climax, was to be his experience for an eternal moment.

  But he hadn’t known about the plastic explosive on the sewage pipes above the temple. The ceiling imploded and hundreds of tons of sewage, coming with the force of the falls at Niagara, smashed the congregation against the walls, spattering brains, drowning those who survived the impact.

  Minder was one of those who survived the impact. But he began to drown, his lungs filling with all the best-forgotten things that are in sewage, in the one minute allotted to him by the Head Underneath. The one minute that was to stretch into an eternity, no matter what happened then. And it went on and on. While the cocaine rush made him feel it intensely.

  Joey Minder and Lily Chancery drowned in sewage, forever. And Forever.

  SEVENTEEN

  “Hey, boy, it’s crazy, this weather, huh?” the Greek cabbie prompted. The lower half of his broad, perspiring face was dominated by a black mustache. “Boy, I don’t blame you, dressing in…so little.”

  Cabdrivers see it all. New York cabbies are not likely to be shocked by the sight of a woman dressed only in a black silk kimono tied at the waist with a red sash, her eyes glazed, her face full of silence, and a shirtless grimy man carrying a stoppered jade urn. Especially if the man standing on a street corner, girl beside him, is waving a twenty-dollar bill.

  Long as the guy has the fare, what the hell. But maybe the cabbie was annoyed that Lanyard said nothing, not a word, when the driver said, “Whoa, whatchoo thinka that?” as over the radio came word that a section of the subway had collapsed. And the entire East Side’s sewer system was “apparently sabotaged by some as yet unknown terrorist group.” And two trains were derailed—all as a result of explosions under the city, just south of Second Avenue and Houston. “Can you beat that?” the cabbie asked rhetorically. It was his last attempt to prod conversation from the grimy man in the back seat.

  Lanyard hadn’t heard much of the radio newscast; he was limp with exhaustion, his head bowed and bobbing with every pothole they hit. The jade urn was on the floor, held in place by his feet. Madelaine sat passively in the crook of Lanyard’s right arm.

  They bumped in silence to Maguss’s Park Avenue address. When they arrived, Lanyard looked up, yawned, and gave the driver the twenty. “Keep th’ change,” he mumbled. “For good luck.”

  Lanyard climbed from the car, the urn in his right arm, tugging Madelaine behind him with his left hand, towing her across the sidewalk, through the sticky Halloween night, and into the cool, air-conditioned lobby. He set the urn on the rug and tried to smile at the doorman.

  Looking Lanyard up and down and cocking his head, the black doorman said, “You got to be Lanyard. He said to let you in no matter how you looked. This part of some Halloween costume, huh? Mr. Maguss said to give you this here.” A white business envelope.

  Lanyard tore open the envelope, as Madelaine slumped against him. Reading the printed note inside, his tired exhilaration changed to mild alarm.

  HAVE PURCHASED TWO APARTMENTS. SECOND IS IN BASEMENT. 1B. MEET ME THERE. MAGUSS.

  Lanyard shrugged and, grunting, picked up the heavy jade urn and moved stiffly to the elevator, supporting Madelaine on his left arm. He heard the doorman say to a janitor, behind them, “Jesus, she must’ve got into some good downs.”

  Lanyard sagged against the back wall of the elevator, wishing that he weren’t going down. He closed his eyes.

  He opened them a moment later when he heard the elevator doors open. The first thing he noticed were the power currents, surging in the air over Maguss, flowing down the corridor to the right, behind him.

  The black writhings reached tenuous fingers down to caress the jade urn; other wriggling strips fluttered about Lanyard, and dipped at Madelaine, drawing back. He repressed the urge to take a swipe at them.

  Maguss was staring at the urn. “That’s it,” he said wonderingly. “I can’t believe it. I never thought—well, that’s it, then.” He smiled apologetically at Lanyard. “You look beat, son. You and the lady both. Permit me to assist her—I presume this is Madelaine Sp
ringer? Is that who you are, dear?” he asked, patting her arm. She looked at him and said nothing. “I see,” Maguss murmured. He wore a black pinstriped three-piece suit, a black tie tucked in a flat-black vest.

  “You look like you’re dressed for a funeral,” Lanyard said, watching him.

  Maguss didn’t answer. He was leading Madelaine down the hall, taking her soft white arm between his dry blue-veined hands. He crooned to her almost inaudibly.

  Picking up the urn, swearing, his back creaking, Lanyard followed.

  Since leaving the tunnels, Lanyard had felt dizzy, giddy with triumph and exhaustion. The Voices were almost silent, his Gift blessedly muted. And he walked through the world noticing very little, wanting to deliver the urn for exorcism, to take Madelaine to a doctor, to let the last of his responsibilities slide away. But now he found himself scrutinizing his surroundings carefully, and listening for the Voices.

  Perhaps it was his sense that in the heavy jade urn he carried in his arms—just big enough to contain a man’s head, whole—he felt something stirring. And he wondered at the quality of Maguss’s power currents—so much like the currents Lanyard had traced to the hidden temple.

  Maguss led them down a spacious hallway, past the doors of other apartments—some of them open and clearly vacant. It was a new building, and most of the apartments hadn’t been sold yet. The square plastic light fixtures were not yet flyspecked; the blue pastel plaster walls were not yet smutched at shoulder level on the corners. The smell of new paint was everywhere.

  Number 1B was a corner apartment; its high basement windows looked out on intersecting sidewalks; beyond the antiburglar bars over the window was an endless parade of legs, seen mostly from the calf down, a confused parade in which the participants marched both ways.

  “Interesting view, isn’t it?” asked Maguss, closing the door behind them. “You see square-toed boots marching along with single-minded determination and three-hundred dollar Italian shoes mincing and alligator shoes lifted high—”

  “Why did you take a second apartment?” Lanyard asked, setting the urn on the rugless concrete floor. “And what’s the curtain for?” He nodded toward a dark-red curtain that divided the living room; the other half of the rectangular main room was completely concealed from him. The curtain hung floor to ceiling on a metal runner that looked as if it had been recently screwed into the plaster.

  “I took a second apartment,” Maguss said, with a touch of reproach, “for personal reasons. The curtain is part of an experiment—I’m sorry the room is so unfurnished. But do sit down, Carl.”

  Lanyard tingled with suspicion; but his legs were unsteady with weariness. He sank into the room’s only furnishing, a curvy aluminum chair with a black vinyl seat. But he sat up straight when Maguss led Madelaine toward the curtain. “Where—”

  “Just taking her to lie down on the couch, on the other side. Oh, do calm down, Carl. You’re as jumpy as a cat in heat. The young lady has clearly had some sort of awful shock.” Madelaine went along in utter docility. Her expression of faint curiosity hadn’t changed; her lips were cracked, her hands and feet dusty. “It’s nice and dark and cool in here. She can rest and then you and I will talk.”

  They passed through the slit in the curtains, and were hidden from him.

  Lanyard glanced at the urn; the figures on it seemed to shift, to buckle. He looked away.

  Behind him was a hallway presumably leading to the bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom. He felt filthy recalling the look the doorman had given him. He could ask Maguss if he might take a shower, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave the living room—not with Madelaine behind that blood-red curtain. He shifted nervously in the seat.

  He could hear Maguss maundering meaningless endearments at Madelaine, as if she were a child he was putting to bed.

  Lanyard checked for the power currents. He couldn’t see them, now. Inexplicably, their disappearance shook him.

  “Maguss?” he called softly, not wanting to disturb Madelaine. What was taking the old man so long? “Maguss!” he called, more loudly. “Hey, are you there?”

  No reply. No reply, that is, from the material world. But someone else responded, in words beyond sound.

  Carl…his mother’s voice.

  A thrill of elation ran through him. “Mother?”

  Carl, they—

  But he lost contact when Maguss parted the curtains, stepping into view and quickly drawing the curtains shut behind him.

  “What’s the problem, Carl?” he asked. But his eyes were on the jade urn.

  “I—I was just wondering what was taking you so long….” What had been wrong? He wasn’t sure.

  “You’ve been through a lot today, Carl. You’re understandably jumpy.” Maguss walked over to the urn and went to his knees beside it. He touched the figures carved in relief, traced the milky swirl; his ancient, trembling hand—trembling more than usual—lingered on the dog-headed demon-figure. “You can feel it….” he murmured.

  Never before had Lanyard seen Maguss so obviously moved. The old man traced the seal plugging the urn, with his tobacco-yellowed fingers. “Do you know what’s inside this work of art, Carl?”

  “I know what’s supposedly inside.”

  “Oh, it’s there, all right. The cult that Minder revived was once, centuries ago, very powerful. And its priest was very powerful. A certain king was afraid of the priest’s power. Afraid his monarchy would become a theocracy. So he had the priest killed, and had his head placed in this urn, which he used for a footstool.” Maguss smiled at Lanyard; tears glittered in his eyes. Tears of happiness. The sort of tears one sees in the eyes of relatives at reunions, when years have passed since the last meeting. “He was—that priest—he was a sort of ancestor of mine…So much I don’t remember…”

  Maguss straightened and turned his back. “When you get old, you get silly about your hobbies, your nostalgia.” When he faced Lanyard again, his face was solemn, the tears gone. “Cigarette, Carl?” He brought out the ivory cigarette case.

  “Thanks.” Lanyard nodded, and Maguss lit one for each of them. Lanyard took the cigarette and inhaled; his jittery nerves buzzed less loudly.

  He enjoyed the fact that there was no place for Maguss to sit. Let the old S.O.B. stand, he thought. Then, once more, he wondered at his own hostility.

  He glanced at the curtain. “What’s wrong with her? She’s aware, I can tell. But she doesn’t…respond. She doesn’t speak. Have they got her—uh—mesmerized in some way?”

  “I think, Carl, that they have driven her a little mad. I know for a fact that she never joined them, really. She pretended to, but she’s a good actress, and Joey fell for it. She’s just withdrawn into herself. She’ll come out of it.”

  Lanyard squinted at the curtain doubtfully. “She—never participated? How can you be sure?”

  “I’m sure. She’s an innocent.”

  Lanyard would have pursued the question, but Maguss interrupted: “Carl—you have, I suspect, been thinking of writing a book about all this. An exposé sort of thing.” His lips curled into the sort of smile that celebrates irony. “Still going to do it?”

  Lanyard felt a small shock. Was he still going to write about it? “No, I don’t see how I can. I blew up those pipes, I—” He laughed. But he felt his face draining. “I killed people. I must have caused millions of dollars in damage.”

  It was as if he were coming out of a drug delirium, remembering what he’d done with horror and embarrassment. And fear. His gut contracted.

  “Yes,” said Maguss pleasantly; his right hand cupped his left elbow, the upraised hand held his cigarette poised near his face. “It seems you’re in big trouble.”

  Lanyard’s jaw muscles bunched. “You set me up, again and again. You knew what I’d see at Merino’s—”

  “I had to trigger your…your acceptance of the Gift. Of the truth. It was—”

  “For my own good? Right. And you set me up for this—”

  “Frankly
, I didn’t think you would come back alive. I was rooting for you, of course. I wanted the urn. It makes everything easier.”

  Lanyard flipped his cigarette to the floor, a gesture of contempt. Maguss failed to react. Suddenly, shirtless in the air conditioning, Lanyard was cold.

  Maguss gazed at Lanyard speculatively. He said nothing.

  Lanyard stood, preparing to move toward the red velvet curtain.

  Maguss held up a frail hand in warning. Lanyard could have broken the hand in his own, but Maguss was practiced in the exercise of authority. Lanyard hesitated. “Carl…we have agreed, I think, that you’re in trouble. If I want, I can turn you over to the police. I can do it without implicating myself. Believe me—I’ve got it all worked out. They’re just dying for someone to blame, Carl. You left an awful mess, you know. Literally. Whole sections of town are health hazards now. They even smell bad…” He laughed for a moment. “Worse than usual, I mean.” He took a drag on his cigarette, then blew a smoke ring, and blew a smaller one through the first. “And then there’s the fact that a lot of people died down there. I know they died. Horribly. I was following the whole thing, from my end.”

  Lanyard shook his head in amazement. “You knew where their temple was?”

  “Oh, yes. But I needed you to get there, to pick up the urn. I had planted someone in the cult, but—I only barely managed to keep them from discovering him. You were able to walk out with the urn, just like that. No one touched you. It was His will—because he intended you to bring the urn to me. So they couldn’t hurt you. Not that you can’t be hurt.”

  Lanyard looked at the red curtain. “What are you getting around to?”

  “I can make you strong. I can teach you how how to really use your Gift. I can make you rich. I can—”